Cold Open

It’s June 1st, 1864, in Hanover County, Virginia, during the fourth year of the American Civil War.

19-year-old Confederate Private Green W. Hodge creeps through thick woods, on the lookout for Union soldiers.

As he glances left and right… a bullet ricochets off the tree next to him, splintering the wood.

Hodge ducks down beside the nearest trunk and makes himself as small as possible, all too aware how close he just came to being hit.

Yesterday, Union soldiers targeted a strategically important crossroads in Virginia, known locally as Cold Harbor. Private Hodge’s regiment was instructed to keep the attackers at bay until reinforcements arrived, but the vastly outnumbered Confederates were pushed back into the woods. There, they began digging new defensive positions. And now, while his compatriots continue to fortify these defenses, Private Green has been sent to patrol the woods—and judging by how close that gunshot was, the enemy isn’t far away.

Private Hodge checks his weapon and scans all around. He can’t see the enemy. But 30 feet away through the trees, he can just make out his fellow Confederates barricaded behind a hastily built wall of mud.

After one last check around him, he makes a run for it.

But he isn’t fast enough. Before he can reach the barricade, a bullet strikes his leg and sends him crashing to the ground.

As Private Hodge writhes in agony, he hears footsteps approaching. It’s a Union captain, and believing the enemy soldier has come to deal a final blow, Hodge braces himself. But the Union man doesn’t shoot.

Instead, he kneels down and ties a tourniquet around Hodge’s leg to stop the bleeding.

Then, he scrapes up some dirt into a mound and gently rests Hodge’s head on it.

Finally, he holds a canteen of water to Hodge’s lips and lets him drink. Then, without a word or even a nod, Hodge’s savior disappears back into the woods.

After Private Green W. Hodge crawls back to the safety of the Confederate lines, he’ll recount in amazement the story of the Union captain who saved his life rather than kill him. But thousands of other soldiers on both sides will not be so lucky, and the Battle of Cold Harbor will rage for another 11 days before it finally comes to an end on June 12th, 1864.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is June 12th, 1864: Retreat from Cold Harbor.

Act One: A Deadly Delay

It’s 2 AM, on June 2nd, 1864, in Hanover County, Virginia, two days after the Battle of Cold Harbor began.

40-year-old Union General Winfield Hancock curses as a stray branch whips him in the face. It seems like the tenth time this is happened in the past hour. With a resigned sigh, he dismounts his horse and hands the reins to an orderly. Hancock will have to join the rest of his men as they slog through these dark woods on foot. But he’s barely gone ten yards before his boot catches on a tree root, and he almost trips.

General Hancock curses again, louder this time, and calls the halt to the march. He has 15,000 men under his command, and they snake back for more than a mile. But leading them through these trees with only moonlight to guide them is painfully slow.

With the amount of ground his men have covered so far, General Hancock thinks they should have hit the Southern Chickahominy River by now. But they haven’t. And in fact, Hancock thinks they may still be several miles west of Cold Harbor—the key crossroads taken by Union forces only two days ago, and the place that General Hancock has been ordered to rendezvous with the rest of the Union Army.

So, Hancock points in the direction that he thinks they need to go and orders his officers to resume the march. The soldiers climb wearily to their feet. Even in the darkness, Hancock can tell that his men are exhausted. But as they begin to trudge again through the woods, they finally get some good news. A Union soldier on night patrol emerges from the gloom and informs General Hancock that the Union base camp is just up ahead. If they get there soon, they should be able to get a few hours rest before they’re asked to join the fight against the Confederates.

The United States has been at war with itself since April 1861. But the tide of this civil war is slowly turning. Eleven months ago, at the Battle of Gettysburg, a Confederate attempt to invade the North was pushed back. Following this pivotal battle, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln appointed the more aggressive General Ulysses S. Grant to overall command of the Union forces.

And ever since, General Grant has been grinding the Confederacy down with the Union’s superior manpower and industrial capacity. Now, Northern armies are edging further and further into Confederate territory. The end of this destructive Civil War seems closer than ever. And if Grant’s Army can get hold to the territory around Cold Harbor, it will cut off a vital supply route to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, just ten miles away. But the fighting around the crossroads is fierce, and the Union position is not secure yet.

After General Hancock finally gets his men into the Union camp, General Grant orders him to immediately ready his troops for battle. They’re to attack at dawn. But the punishing overnight march has taken its toll on Hancock’s men, and many of them can barely stand, let alone fight. The Union army is also running short on ammunition, and the weather is not on their side either. A storm is due to break, and Hancock fears that heavy rainfall will bog down his troops and make attacking the Confederate defensive positions even more difficult. With so much going against them, Hancock persuades General Grant to hold off on the attack for 24 hours. Grant grudgingly agrees and issues new orders to commence the assault at dawn the next day.

But that decision plays perfectly into the hands of his enemy, the Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. The more time that General Lee has to prepare his defensive positions, the more confident he is that the Confederates can withstand the Union attack at Cold Harbor.

So with no sign of General Grant’s forces that morning, Lee instructs his troops to fortify a seven-mile defensive line between two rivers, Totopotomoy Creek in the north and the Chickahominy in the south.

So over the course of the day, the Confederate soldiers work tirelessly, digging trenches and building barricades. And just before the last of the daylight fades, General Lee examines the newly dug fortifications. He’s happy with his men's progress. Because now, if the Union army wants to reach Richmond, they’ll have to fight their way through miles of heavily defended territory.

But the work to strengthen the Confederate defenses will continue long into the night. And by morning, both sides will be expecting a fight. But the Battle of Cold Harbor will not be a quick encounter, and General Grant’s decision to delay the Union attack will prove to be a deadly one.

Act Two: Murder, Not War

It’s early on June 3rd, 1864, in Hanover County, Virginia, the day after General Winfield Hancock brought his men into the Union camp.

46-year-old James Ricketts, a Brigadier General in the Union Army, wipes the rain from his eyes as he inspects his division. General Ricketts has around 2,000 men under his command, but he can’t see them all—both ends of the line are hidden in thick fog. The section in front of him at least is neatly formed up with weapons drawn—and he’s confident that his subordinate officers will have the rest of his men ready to attack too.

General Ricketts’ division has a reputation for hard fighting, so today they’ve been entrusted with leading the vanguard. If they can break through the center of the Confederate line, the enemy’s resistance will hopefully crumble, and the Union Army will have a clear run at Richmond.

A bugle rings out and General Ricketts' troops cheer. It’s time for the attack to begin. The rain that’s been falling all night suddenly stops, and Ricketts leads his soldiers forward in double-time.

He hopes their speed will catch the Confederate defenders by surprise. But the neat line of soldiers Ricketts just inspected quickly falls apart as his men slip and fall in the mud. Ricketts keeps moving forward though, straining his eyes to spot the Confederate positions through the mist. Bullets then begin to whistle around him, but he can’t tell exactly where the shots are coming from. And as the Confederate fire intensifies, rifle smoke mixes with the low-hanging mist, making visibility even worse.

Then, the Confederate artillery opens up. Shells fall all around Ricketts, sending clods of wet earth and shrapnel flying through the air. Men scream out as they’re hit.

Slipping in the mud, General Ricketts falls to his knees and crawls forward to a tiny ridge that offers some protection. And as bullets thud into the ground around him, the mist clears for a moment and, for the first time since the attack began, Ricketts finally gets a glimpse of the enemy. The Confederate soldier he sees is barely visible, only his head protruding from a trench. But that's enough, and Ricketts takes aim with his weapon and fires. There’s a quick splash of blood, and the Confederate soldier falls back, out of view.

Then, General Ricketts tries to take stock of the situation. To his right, he can’t see anything at all through the fog. But to his left, his soldiers seem to have made more progress. A Confederate trench has been overrun, and his men are fighting hand-to-hand with the enemy for every yard of territory.

So, Ricketts rises to his feet and, keeping low, he hurries through the mud toward them.

He slides into the trench and joins the fight. Ricketts senses that the momentum of the battle is turning—if his men can gain a foothold here, then they can use it to break through the enemy line.

But just then the Confederate artillery turn their fire on the captured trenches. Cannons force the Union soldiers to take cover. The earth shakes around them, and the pounding continues relentlessly for hours. General Ricketts eventually has no choice but to order his men to withdraw. They retreat from the hard-won trenches back through the sludgy field they crossed earlier that morning—but now, the mud is covered with the bodies of their fallen comrades. Wounded soldiers moan in pain, reaching out to clasp at Ricketts’ legs as he passes. But Ricketts knows his men can’t stop. They have to leave the dead and dying behind.

By 12:30 PM, he and his men are back in the safety of the original Union lines. There, General Ricketts discovers the terrible cost of the failed attack. During the first 45 minutes of the assault, as they slogged blindly through the fog toward the Confederate defenses, over 1,000 Union soldiers were killed, and 7,000 more were wounded.

But the battle isn’t over yet. With no chance of breaking through the Confederate line now, Union commander General Ulysses S. Grant orders his troops to dig their own defensive trenches. And over the next nine days, both sides bombard the other with their artillery, and sharpshooters pick off any soldiers who dare leave the trenches. While this standoff continues, General Grant swaps messages with his counterpart, General Robert E. Lee. But they can’t agree on terms for a ceasefire, so the wounded Union soldiers between the lines are left to suffer and die.

Eventually, General Grant will find a way to break the stalemate. But rather than advancing on Richmond from Cold Harbor as he hoped, he’ll be forced to go in a completely different direction.

Act Three: An Army Disappears

It’s late on June 12th, 1864, in Hanover County, Virginia, nine days after the start of the Battle of Cold Harbor.

As night cloaks the battlefield, General George Meade mounts his horse as quietly as he can. All around him, fellow Union officers do the same. And the soldiers of the rank and file silently shoulder their packs. General Ulysses S. Grant has finally given the order that many of his soldiers had hoped to hear: The Union Army is withdrawing.

General Meade checks the rear guard that’s staying behind to cover their retreat, then leads his men away from the trenches. But they’re not going home. Instead, Meade has been told to head 40 miles south to the city of Petersburg. There, a vital railroad runs to Richmond—and the Union Army will try again to capture and hold a strategic supply route to the Confederate capital.

But the Union Army’s retreat has been predicted by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Still, what Lee has not foreseen is that the 100,000 strong Union Army could withdraw in a single night. And over the course of eight dark hours, the entire force crosses the James River undetected. The Confederates won’t realize the Union Army is gone until dawn—and by then, it’ll be too late to stop them from reaching Petersburg.

Before their withdrawal, the Union Army took over 10,000 casualties at Cold Harbor. And General Grant will not immediately learn from his mistakes. He’ll launch a similar full-frontal assault on Petersburg. And it will only be when his troops are pushed back at great cost again will Grant try a different tactic. He’ll copy the Confederates by digging trenches of their own around the city. And for almost a year, he’ll have Petersburg under siege. Only after the city finally surrenders in early April 1865 will Richmond fall within a week.

By early summer that year, the American Civil War will be over. But the collapse of the Confederacy will not bring back those who lost their lives in General Grant’s haste to end the war, when almost 2,000 Union soldiers were killed and thousands more wounded in a failed attack that ended in retreat at Cold Harbor on June 12th, 1864.

Outro

Next on History Daily. June 13th, 1886. Days after being declared insane and deposed, King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowns in a lake under mysterious circumstances.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nicholls.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.